Meeting Konchok

In the meantime I have learned, from the distance signs, that from the last village Rumtse before the Taglung La Pass and the first village Dehbrink behind the 5.330m Pass its 55 km. Sumit said it’s maximum 45 km, what’s a very long walk for one day, incl. 1.160m climing up from 4.170m until 5.330m. In extrem cases I can do the 40 to 45 km, but 55 km…. puh.  And the lented tent is already in Dehbring. Playing through I plan to get up at 2am to hopefully manage to be at the top at noon (31km) and reaching Dehbrink (another 24km) before the dark. It’s nearly end of September, so it gets dark a little bit after 6pm.
Until here the weather was more than fabulous. Today on Friday some little clouds are coming. Maybe the forecast from Xavier and Chamille? Tomorrow colder?
Today I will reach Rumtse.
But I am so tired. I have to rest and rest again, I don’t know really why….. So …in Rumtse there is a day rest planed. Little bit after a government school in Sasoma I meet a men. He is one of the guys who is left with an open mouth, understanding that I continue the peace walk until Nepal and Birma, walking already since 5 years and five month. But he has a good news for me. There is a short cut for walkers, jeeps, and bycicles, so the way over the pass is ‚just‘ about 45 km. But steep. Aha. Great.

Little bit after, a monk is walking the street downwards. He just comes from Rumtse, trying to safe a dog. Someone put a wire around his neck when he was small. Because it’s a hairy and wild dog, no-one realised, that this wire was still there. No it is infected, the dog kind of stinks from this wound and maybe some worms already busy in that wound. They tried to catch him today with a lot of people, but the dog is so scared of humans….. it did not work. Konchok, the monk, thinks, the dog maid not make it.
Konchok is a smiling monk, teaching at this govornment high school, which I just passed. When he learned about my walk he forwarded his both hands to me to thank me. ‚We (monks) should also do like this‘. We sat down at the street side and talked. Then he invited me to his simple rented place, just a small room. The electricity does not work today.
Also we had to look for water at the spring. We both watched the old bridge, covered with metal plates. Every time, when a car passes, it sounds like something frightening happening. A new bridge is in construction.
When we came back from the spring, the army passed with lots of vehicles. How could this army men power be used, at least partly, for other purposes? !!!! I tell him about a ‚peace armee‘ which could be for the beginning just 5 % of the regular armee. That peace armee should be also payed by the government but not have any guns or other weapons. They have to be taught in peace technics, like meditation and deep listening and conflict solving tools, to send in areas, who are in trouble, but where still communication is possible, to go into schools, university’s and houses, to speak with the people. Slowly this peace army has to become 10% …. 15% and so on. So that we don’t need the armed ones one day…….

Reguarding the bridge noise, Konchok tells later the evening, about a cloud blast in 2010 in Leh. I heard about these cloud blast before from some people. It happens here and then, so people got so frightened, that just don’t want to come to Ladakh anymore. That night, Konchok was north of Leh, it was raining, when he woke up from a dream screeming ‚the water is coming‘. Everyone in the house calmed him down, but to that time in Leh, a house with 7 relatives of him, was washed away. They found just 3 bodies later…. he went there later and he could not say, where the house was standing before. That night, so many more died and the damage was enormous.
Then he reported also about a sunny day closed by. It did not rain at all, when black water came down a normally little creek. Wherefrom, no-one know. I said I saw this black water floods on videos after the Japan Tsunami….. And for this black water with lots of stones and whatever in it, I had also one idea:
sometimes in a glacier, it can happen that there is a lake inside. You can’t see it from outside. And some day, because of melting, the whole lake could flow out….. Yes, there is a glacier above….. he said.

Sasoma, where we are, I learn, is the oldest village in Ladakh. Earlier the king had his palace here. Some ruins are left.

Konchok, 42, is kind of a ‚free‘ monk. Since he was 9, he was given as a second child from his father to a monastery. He did not like it for a long while. But know he loves it. He had very strict and strong teachers. Later he left the monastery and became a teacher. He also recieves the same sallery then any other teacher. At the weekend, he drives with his car back to Leh, to his sister’s house. Teachers rotate after 2 years to other schools, so his time in Sasoma is finished with the 2 1/2 month winter holiday in two month. After he is sent to another school in Ladakh.
Even now he is studying for another exam.
Also now he translates a scripture about Buddha with 55 chapters from Hindi to Tibetan. 7 chapters are already done.

I enjoy our rich conversation. His room has no running water and it’s difficult to cook there with all the buckets …. without electricity today….. The ‚washing room‘ is actually just a dry toilet. Washing is outside. Maybe with some water you heat up on the gas before. But he hisself enjoys washing at the weekend at his sister’s….
So we did in the dark with a torch…..
I ask him about meditation and to my surprise he answers, that he does not meditate a lot. Also he says, that everyone is so surprised with this. But he has to be honest. He grew up by learning knowledge. So his teachers wanted, that he had good knowledge. So somehow he continued. Anyhow, he does some exercises now…. who are a kind of meditation. And the chantings followed by some silence…..

I tell him about my expiriences with the monasteries and the monks there. About my plans with ‚maybe proparbly‘ building a stupa or even a spiritual village. I learn, what is to put in a stupa, for example jewels, incenses, holy scriptures, prayers…… and so on. A stupa should have specific mesures…… to find also in the internet. We found out, that we both know the walkin stupa in hungary. The monks, who take care of the stupa in hungary are his friends and he visited them some years ago. There is now also a temple beside the stupa and a nun is taking care of the temple.
During our all evening conversation I get more and more confident, without and with being encouraged from his side, that I/we are able to initiate a stupa or something very semilar by ourselves. And for sure, I stay very much open to do that together with monks, his holiness…. or and other spiritual leaders from different religions/directions …..

We also spoke about healings and sound healings … we had a real good night and a next morning.

Rumtse is just 2km away from his home. But I thought there are some houses closer to the pass. But not.. . Anyway, I stay now in a ‚homestay‘ donated by Konchok, in Rumtse. I have two nights here. Resting, writing, leaving tomorrow at around 4am.

Konchok offered me different other options, like staying in his room, while he is in Leh at the weekend. Also coming with him to Leh, to see his sister’s family and his master coming this weekend….. I was also real interested in that. But I decided to follow my duty, to manage walking this way to Manali and focussing on it. Yesterday, there was some snow here, but now it seems to clear up again.

Today and yesterday I discovered some stupas here. Walls of stupas and 100s of meter long. I circled around of all of them. Sounding the ‚om mani padme hum‘. Some of them are built by people, to think of there sins or to transform there habbits.

And something is also special. I create so many positive ideas, what to do after the peace walk. The ideas rising up, as if I would be in a fast….

For example
-creating stone engraved with ‚love‘ or ‚peace‘ putting anywhere in nature…
-Offering other peacewalks……
……
…….